Exhibition Preview—Social Fabrics: Inscribed Textiles from Medieval Egyptian Tombs

Welcome. I think most of you, for most of you, I'm a familiar face. I'm Susanne Ebbinghaus. I'm the George M. A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art and also the Head of the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art. And I'm very pleased to welcome you to the virtual preview of the upcoming exhibition, Social Fabrics, Inscribed Textiles from Medieval Egyptian Tombs. Before we begin, we would like to pay tribute to the original inhabitants of the land on which Harvard resides by acknowledging that Harvard University is situated on the traditional and ancestral territory of the Massachusetts people. We strive to honor this relationship. Thank you for joining us. On behalf of my curatorial colleagues and colleagues in institutional advancement, I would like to warmly thank you for your ongoing support and for staying connected virtually, even in these unsettled times. A few housekeeping notes before we begin. For now, please keep your microphones on mute. There will be time at the end of the presentation to ask questions. And at that point, you can either type them into the chat or you can also just simply unmute and speak up. It is always a pleasure to introduce my colleague Mary McWilliams, the Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and later Indian Art. But I have to say that today is bittersweet because Mary will be retiring in only a little more than two weeks from now. So I would like to take this moment for a quick look back. Mary joined the Harvard Art Museums in June of 1998, arriving from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Before that, she worked for shorter periods at the National Gallery of Art and also the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., and she spent a year at the Nagaristan Museum in Tehran. Here at Harvard, Mary worked very hard to research, catalog, conserve, and also grow the collections of Islamic and later Indian art. And she mounted a number of striking exhibitions, several of them accompanied by a catalog. So going back in time, the next slide, Mary. I think all of you will remember Technologies of the Image, Art in Nineteenth-Century Iran, full of amazing works of Lecker, among other things. And the next slide. There was Back in the Old Sackler Building, In Harmony, the Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, accompanied by a two-volume, by a thick catalog. And the next slide. Heroic, and now we are moving into the former Islamic galleries that changed quite regularly on the second floor of the Sackler Building. Heroic Jests, Epic Tales from Ferdowsi's Shahnama. And the next one. A very colorful one, Color in the Oasis, E-Cuts of Central Asia, which Mary co-curated with Geoffrey Spurr. Next. On the Path of Madness, Representations of Majnun in Persian, Turkish, and Indian Painting, co-curated with Sunil Sharma. And the next one. The Spot of Kings, Part of the Hunt in Iran and India. And you may spot the fabulous shield that is currently also on view in the permanent galleries. And the next slide. The Continuous Stroke of a Breath, Calligraphy from the Islamic World. And here I should also add that Mary also co-curated with David Roxborough from History of Art and Architecture, an exhibition entitled Traces of the Calligrapher that was on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and traveled on to the Asia Society as well as the Carlos Museum in Atlanta. And the next image. And finally, the Best Workmanship, the Finest Materials, Prayer Carpets from the Islamic World. And the next slide, Mary. Yes. Mary worked also very closely with our colleagues in Conservation and Conservation Science. And here you see her together with Objects Conservator Tony Siegel, talking about the construction and conservation treatment of a sweetsmeats dish. Mary is generally an amazing collaborator, both for curatorial as well as for faculty colleagues. And she has been an outstanding mentor to junior colleagues, fellows and graduate student interns. Mary, you will be very much missed. And I already look forward when you are going to make a reappearance in next spring for a Calderwood lecture in conjunction with the Social Fabrics exhibition. So let's, without further ado, let's learn more about this upcoming exhibition. Thank you so much, Susanna. Thank you for that very kind and generous introduction. And good afternoon, everyone. I am so excited to have an opportunity to give you a preview of my last exhibition at the Harvard Art Museums. And I'm thrilled with this last project that Harvard focuses on textiles. Despite their great cultural and historical importance, the textile arts have not been a traditional strength in the collection. Social Fabrics is largely a loan show. And we've had generous cooperation from our cousin institutions, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, and the Museum of Fine Arts just across the river. And from the Textile Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For members of our audience who are not familiar with historical textiles, I hope this exhibition will provide a deeper appreciation of one of the most ancient, pervasive, and intimate art forms. Textiles touch nearly every aspect of human existence, from swaddling newborns to enshrouding the deceased. Woven fabrics have functioned for millennia as necessity and luxuries, but also as a medium of exchange and a form of wealth. In consumer-driven societies, where fabrics are machine-made, disposable goods, it can be difficult to understand the extraordinary artistry invested in medieval textiles and their value as an economic asset for individuals and the state. Conversely, the latitude given to dress as a form of personal expression in our day would have been inconceivable to a medieval Egyptian. For historians, textiles serve as important socioeconomic indicators. Their manufacture, appearance, and consumption provide vital clues to understanding societies and the place of the individual they're in. The textiles in our exhibition are particularly meaningful because they are embedded with words. The title, Social Fabrics, is more than a play on words. The fabric in question are a visual form of communication, expressing political and social power, commercial contacts, and concerns for the afterlife. The exhibition highlights the significance of language-bearing thoughts created during a transformative period in Egyptian history. In the medieval era, control of the region shifted repeatedly as Egypt was subsumed under a sequence of empires, Byzantine, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ptahimid, and the majority religion gradually evolved from pagan to Christian to Muslim. These seismic political and cultural changes are reflected in the textiles. With only 38 objects, the exhibition is not large, but it packs a lot of content. This is rich and complex subject matter, and as you can see from the title page of the exhibition catalog, I had the great good fortune to tackle it with a marvelous group of colleagues. Curators, conservators, and professors, and if you see the figures pictured at lower right, conservation fellow Julie Wirtz, and then Harvard graduate student interns, but now newly minted PhDs Katie Terrones and Meredith Winter. Although he's not pictured here, Professor Yochan Sokoli has been essential to this effort. For this generation of scholarship, he is the expert for these textiles. He's co-editor of the catalog, and next spring in April, he will deliver the part of the lecture in Islamic art to coincide with the exhibition. The exhibition features 31 textiles. Most were produced about a thousand years ago in Egypt, although a few came from Yemen, Iran, and Iraq. All are said to have been recovered from Egyptian graves. The core fabrics date from the 9th through 12th centuries, and taken together, they reveal the diversity and stratification of medieval Egypt. Although they feature varied materials, techniques, and designs, they are conceptually unified by Arabic inscriptions, either present or as a paradigm, and most belong to the prized category of tiraz textiles. Tiraz may be an unfamiliar word for many. In fact, there is much in this project that may be new ground, so I'll ask your indulgence to lay down some background information. We'll start with the general definition of tiraz, then establish our bearings in time and space, and finally clarify two technical points. Tiraz were a highly prestigious form of textile. For centuries, they gave material form to a privileged network headed by the caliph or imam, who was the temporal and spiritual leader of the Islamic world. Tiraz with inscriptions that named the caliph were not available for purchase on the open market. They were distributed by the ruler, either as part of annual salary disbursements to state employees, or as gifts to favored courtiers and officials. One of the most telling historical accounts of the use of tiraz can be found in the Muqaddimah by the great Arab philosopher-historian of the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun, which you see on the screen. He was describing the court practices of the Fatimid dynasty, who ruled Egypt from 969 to 1171, when he wrote, One of the splendors of power and sovereignty was to inscribe their names in the borders of garments designed for their wear. Thus, the royal robes are bordered with a tiraz. It is an emblem of dignity reserved for the sovereign, for those whom he wishes to honor by authorizing them to make use of it, and for those whom he invests with one of the responsible posts of government. Tiraz inscriptions announced political and religious affiliations, and sometimes expressed aspirations, but they were different from the message t-shirts or slogan hats that we're familiar with. The content of tiraz inscriptions was controlled by the state, and their display functioned as a form of differentiation, communicating who could walk in the corridors of power. Now for our bearings on time and space. Our exhibition focuses on the years roughly 850 to 1150, when tiraz was mature, both as a concept and an industry. For comparison and context, we've included some wonderful Egyptian textiles from the pre-Islamic era. This slide hints at the tremendous political and cultural shifts that took place in the late antique and medieval era, and how the Egyptian textile industry responded. In the year 641, the Arab Muslim armies conquered Egypt. As the map at left shows, Egypt had been a prized province of the Byzantine Empire, here colored orange, whose state religion was Christianity. The Byzantine period tapestry below, there's a flowering tree with the word flourish written in Greek. Within the first century of Muslim rule, Arabic replaced Greek as the language of the ruling class and as the administrative language of government. By the 9th century, Egypt had become a province On the center map, it's the Green Territory, simply labeled the Caliphate. The Abbasids ruled Egypt from 750 to 969, although their Caliphate endured elsewhere until 1258. Incorporation into the Abbasid Caliphate brought a profound eastward shift in cultural orientation for Egypt, as the Abbasid seat of power was in Iraq. For most of their reign, the Abbasid imperial capital was background. By the middle decades of the 9th century, the Abbasid aesthetic had found a distinctive expression in tirans. These are elegant but austere textiles. They're usually a finely woven fabric of plain white, on which an inscription has been embroidered in a single color of silk, either red, blue, or black. In this, they recall the appearance of a manuscript page. This example, the example below the map, was created in Baghdad in the early 10th century. In 969, Egypt was wrested from Abbasid control by the armies of the Fatimid dynasty, who established themselves as a rival Caliphate. The map on the right is a bit confusing because of the various shades of green. The Fatimid territory is the deepest green. The Abbasid domain is still labeled the Caliphate, is a lighter blue-green, and Byzantine lands remain orange. The Abbasid and Fatimid regimes differed in many ways, but for our purposes, the two most important factors were, first, they stood on opposite sides of one of the most important schisms in Islam, Sunni and Shia. In a direct challenge to the Sunni Abbasids, the Fatimids claimed to be the rightful leaders of the Islamic world because of their descent from the Prophet Muhammad to his daughter Fatima. And second, the political status of Egypt changed dramatically as control shifted from one regime to the other. Under the Abbasids, Egypt was an important but peripheral province. Under the Fatimids, Egypt became the heartland. The Fatimids founded the city of Cairo as their imperial capital. As a rival Caliphate, the Fatimids were largely cut off from the luxury textiles produced in Abbasid territories. To meet the needs of their extravagant court, they expanded the Egyptian textile industry with spectacular results, as the 11th century tapestry beneath the map illustrates. One of the things that I've really enjoyed as a curator has been the chance to examine works of art closely, to be able to see how a work of art is created through strokes of a brush, pen, or chisel, or in the case of these textiles, through the manipulation of art. I think we better understand artistic achievement by knowing how the physical properties and materials are harnessed to create different visual effects, and by grasping how artists work with the capabilities or struggle against the limitation of their craft. Ours is an age of machine and now digital production, but these fabrics show the hands of their makers if we look closely. I've mentioned embroidery and tapestry, so we'll devote three slides just to be sure certain everyone understands these techniques. Oops, sorry. Speaking broadly, the textile traditions, two textile traditions, were brought together in Egypt in the centuries prior exhibition. We can designate them as the Western and Eastern tradition. Because there are always commercial and artistic exchanges, they're separated here by a porous line. The Western tradition refers to Egypt's indigenous weaving, which primarily used linen and wool. The Eastern tradition refers to textile practices of lands to the East, specifically the tiraz produced in Iraq and Iran, which usually employed cotton and silk. Fibers have different qualities. The animal-derived fibers are easier to dye, so for tiraz, we usually find colored wool and silk used as the patterning elements on grounds of white linen or cotton. Also, silk produces very fine and smooth threads for use in textiles. Wool threads tend to be thicker with a coarser texture. In general terms, there's a long tradition of tapestry weaving in Egypt in contrast to a strong embroidery tradition in lands to the East. There's a lot of information in this slide, but our concern is only with how pattern is created. To embroider a pattern, we start with an already woven fabric. The design is created by pulling colored threads through the fabric with a needle. If you pull those embroidery threads out, you would still have an intact textile because weaving and pattern are separate. Compared to wool, silk threads create less friction when pulled through a fabric, so they work well for embroidery. As expressed in tiraz, the Abbasid aesthetic favored embroidery with silk threads on ground fabrics of cotton and silk. The diagram demonstrates the chain stitch, which was the predominant stitch in Eastern tiraz. You can also see it in the photograph below as a pale green thread. Tapestry, of course, is different. A tapestry weaver builds the pattern during the process, during the weaving process itself. The picture at lower left shows a simple loom setup. The white yarns that run vertically are the warp. The yarns that run horizontally or from right to left are the warp. Here, blue and yellow. Pattern is created by weaving colored weft yarns just where they're needed for the design. The diagram above shows the same thing. The warp is white and the weft yarns are white and black. Pattern is created through the intersecting of the warp and weft yarns. If you pull out the patterning weft yarns, you're left with bare warp. Another important difference between the two techniques concerns the grid created by the horizontal and vertical yarns on the loom. Tapestry builds on the grid, whereas embroidery threads are independent of the grid. They can move in any direction across the face of the textile. That said, tapestry weavers have always found ways to create curves and diagonals. You can see in this photomicrograph of a rabbit from one of my favorite textiles in the exhibition. Until this project, my work in textiles had concentrated on woven silks, in which complex loom is sort of programmed to repeat certain shapes within the grid. The freedom of tapestry took me by surprise. There's a marvelous plasticity in the way the weaver can bend the patterning wefts to build shapes and fill spaces as needed for the design. From this slide, you will also realize that I've been showing you details of larger objects. This is primarily because of our digital format. On a small screen, a detail can sometimes give more information about an object than a mobile image. I want to stress that you will want to experience this exhibition. Textiles have a tactile, physical presence. Too often, studio photography squashes the life of one, and a computer screen further flattens their topography and homogenizes the myriad variations in color and texture. Perhaps you can see that this is a tapestry. It's the earliest tiraz in the exhibition, woven in Egypt around the year 800, before the Eastern embroidery paradigm had become dominant. Now, a second reason for relying on details is that almost all tiraz are now deteriorated and fragmentary. This is mainly due to the very setting that preserved them, which was the tomb, in which they spent long centuries in intimate contact with human bodies. This is a rare and poignant example of a complete tiraz. It preserves a full length of almost eight feet, with warped fringes at top and bottom, and a full lunar. The top image is positioned so that the length, or gork direction, runs horizontally. During its owner's life, it likely served as a cherished shawl. In death, it became a precious shroud. The full view shows dark stains regularly spaced across the length. These movingly testify to how the deceased was wrapped and laid in the grave. But the final transformation of most tiraz into bits and pieces took place comparatively recently, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when there was a vogue for collecting Egyptian burial textiles. Although we decry the practice today, it was customary to cut apart these fabrics, preserving the pattern areas and discarding the damaged sections. Please bear in mind that most of the tiraz we'll see had a format similar to their shawl, that is, a length of mostly plain fabric with decoration concentrated near the ends. There are three sections in the exhibition. The first two focus on the Abbasid and Potomac periods, asking what tiraz textiles meant in the lives of those who commissioned, produced, and used them. The third and final section examines the burial context, asking how tiraz were used and why. The first section of social fabrics concentrates on the 9th and 10th centuries, during which tiraz were essentially an expression of the Abbasid state. We'll look at just a few highlights, beginning with this striking early 10th century work. Its visual impact derives entirely from the inscription, embroidered in deep red on a creamy white ground. The angular script contrasts slender verticals with emphatic horizontal ligatures. The sweeping sublinear elements propel the eye from right to left, the direction in which Arabic is written. This example shows how successfully Egyptian textile workers adapted to the aesthetic preferences of the Abbasid ruling elite. It also reveals that Egyptian workmanship usually employs a greater variety of embroidery stitches on a ground fabric of linen rather than cotton. Because this inscription is unusually complete, it helps clarify the content and character of these texts. Tiraz inscriptions in the Abbasid era are rather specific, and by the narrowest definition they must name the ruling caliph. In this instance, the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtada. They are formulaic texts that resemble the language found on coinage. To have tiraz commissioned in your name was the equivalent of having coins struck in your name. Both were forms of public texts that announced and reinforced your legitimacy as a ruler. The inscriptions generally blend administrative information and pious expressions. Control of tiraz inscriptions, who was named, in what capacity, and in what sequence, was a closely guarded prerogative of the ruler and his immediate administrators. Here the text opens with blessings for the caliph, followed by the names and titles of the government officials who authorized and ordered his production, then the workshop, and the date. The sequence of officials is called the chain of delegation. This example also identifies its production center as a tiraz workshop in Tinnis in the Nile Delta in the Hijri year 309. The primary purpose of tiraz inscriptions was to proclaim a ruler's right to exercise control, but they also offered an arena for competing ambitions. As you'll see in the exhibition, a careful reading of these texts can provide clues to evolving hierarchies and power relationships. But the paradox of this art form is that the texts are often difficult to read. If you know Arabic but are having difficulty matching the transcription with the embroidery in this time, this slide, don't feel bad. Even when you know the formula, the inscriptions can be puzzling because of stylized scripts, orthographic peculiarities, and even missing words. It must have been even more difficult to decipher an inscription in motion, for example, when worn as a garment. Which brings us to our next object. This small tunic was probably intended for a child. I was anxious to secure this loan from the Textile Museum because it's the only surviving tailored garment bearing a caliphal tiraz. This 1,100-year-old tunic allows us to envision how tiraz were worn. The embroidered text is abraded, but we can still discern the name of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqaddir and the date. The fact that the embroidery threads are almost completely worn away suggests that this is a secondary use for a treasured textile. We know from historical documents that some textiles were commissioned expressly to be used as shrouds, but many burial textiles reveal previous usage. In this image, the tunic is lying face down so that you can see the inscription, which is positioned on the back of the left arm. This is presumably so that the text would have been face upward when the body was laid to rest. In Muslim burials, the body is usually laid on its right side, facing Mecca. Although its presence is now faint, we can see that the text served as an armband, and in medieval Islamic art, tiraz are most often depicted as armbands, as we'll see in the next slide. We've included pictorial examples of medieval Muslims wearing tiraz garments to help visitors re-embody the many fragments in their minds as robes or shawls. They were also fashioned into curtains, covers, and cushions. These examples from the Abbasid period convey their enduring role and status over some 300 years. On the left, a luster bowl from 10th century Basra shows a seated courtier holding a beaker. His elaborate costume includes armbands that would have been understood as high status tiraz. On the right is an early 13th century folio from the manuscript on the therapeutic properties of plants, animals, and minerals. The showy fabrics on this figure's shawl and robes, especially the elaborate gold tiraz bands, reflect the affluence and fashion consciousness of the Abbasid court. The textiles found in Egyptian graves reveal a region enmeshed in political and commercial networks, stretching from the Indian Ocean and eastern Iran to the Mediterranean and North Africa. In addition to linen and wool floss from Egypt, our exhibition contains silk from Iran, a reed map from the Levant, and as here, picots from Yemen. By the time this beautiful textile was produced, the territorial realm and political authority of the Abbasid caliphate had dwindled dramatically, and emirs in the provinces began separating from imperial rule. Yet tiraz textiles remain a potent symbol. Tiraz fashion for rulers in Yemen, who nominally recognized Abbasid authority, are often inscribed in gold leaf outlined in black ink. This inscription does not mention the Abbasid caliphate, and instead it announces that a Yemeni emir ordered its production. Yemen's striped cotton cloths were widely appreciated in Islamic lands. The detail shows that the striping was sometimes achieved by setting up the warp threads of the to create simple bands and alternating colors, as in the tan stripes. But the patterning could also be carried out in a technique commonly called ikat, in which yarns were tie-dyed before weaving to create fluctuating gradations of blue, tan, and white. The ikat technique originated in southeast Asia, spreading via Indian Ocean trade to Yemen, where it then became a specialty by the earliest Because it does not actually name the ruling caliph, some scholars would refer to this fabric as a tiraz style textile. For this project, we've adopted a more liberal definition of tiraz to encompass tiraz style textiles, because they clearly emulate the officially inscribed textiles and are in fact conceptually unthinkable without them. The most successful challenge to the Abbasid regime in Egypt came from the Fatimid dynasty. The second section of the exhibition examines tiraz textiles created during their two-century reign. Soon after they conquered Egypt in 969, the Fatimids used tiraz as a symbol of rejuvenation. In this, they were following a well-established practice, yet the content of their inscriptions signaled a decisive shift in the religious climate as the court's allegiance switched from Sunni to Ismaili and Shi'i. This tiraz names Al-Aziz, the second Fatimid caliph to rule from Cairo. It's a commanding work, preserving a full loom width of five feet. Louise Mackie, former curator of textiles in Cleveland, said that whenever she put it on display, visitors would simply stand before it and stare. You must come see it for yourself. A bold inscription runs above and below a decorative band containing pairs of confronted harpies. The key phrases are the reference to the caliph's pure forefathers and his designation as a friend of God. These are coded expressions to assert the Fatimids' special relationship with God in the context of their descent from the Prophet Muhammad. Since their right to rule was based on this ancestral claim, the public display of such texts was one means to consulatize for their cause. With reduced access to the luxury textiles of eastern Islamic lands, the Fatimids relied more heavily on the work of Egyptian weavers, primarily Christian pots in this period. The eastern embroidery technique and the stark abbasid aesthetic seen in earlier tiraz were gradually abandoned and Egypt's indigenous tapestry technique and decorative repertoire were reimagined and refined to enrich tiraz textiles. The tapestry weavers adapted silk threads as patterning elements to create designs with fine linear detail that would have been impossible before. Next we'll see two details just from this tiraz. This large tiraz could have served as a shawl or even a turban cloth. The linen ground fabric on the left the silk letters appear to float in the light green film. Weaving reached virtuoso levels in these works. On the right you can see how the weaver has exploited the freedom of tapestry to create a billowing texture in the copies. The technical term for how the weaver has circumvented the grid of the loom to create these fluid shapes is non-horizontal weft, a very dry description for this poetic effect. In this magnificent tiraz woven about 1100, a sequence of decorative bands ran near the fringed end of what might have been a large shawl. This close-up shows that the weaver has skillfully maintained an even loom tension despite the very different densities of the sheer linen fabric and the compacted silk tapestry. In this example the yellow silk is particularly illustrious and gives the appearance of gold. Now let's look at the decoration which features a wealth of figural and vegetal motifs. Potimate tiraz with ornamental patterns are disproportionately represented in museum collections because they were particularly popular with collectors in the early 20th century and their appeal is undeniable. The next slide will be a close-up of this tiraz focusing on the wide band in the center. Here we're juxtaposing the potimate tiraz with an Egyptian Byzantine era to demonstrate the reinvention of pre-Islamic compositions and motifs. A tripartite composition borders both works. The middle register consists of an interlacing scroll, a giyash if you will, inhabited by animals. Designs in the upper and lower registers reflect one another, that is one set points upward the other downwards. In the Byzantine example on the left the giyash is a vine scroll sprouting great clusters and leaves and it's populated by running animals with tongues vividly rendered in red. In the outer registers the reflected designs are rounded emulations. In the potimate tiraz the vine scroll is abstract and inhabited by pairs of birds. The upper and lower registers are greatly expanded and instead of simple emulations the reflected elements are Arabic inscriptions. In this case the text names the vine scroll inhabited by animals was the most common symbol for expressing natural abundance and the good life in late antique Mediterranean. Our Byzantine cuff band was radiocarbon dated to a range of 370 to 430, that is during the period when Egypt was becoming majority Christian. It could well have adorned the wrist of a pagan or Christian. The continued prominence of the inhabited vine scroll in Egyptian art from late antique into the medieval era demonstrates the fluid transfer of nature-derived iconographies across religious traditions. This unlikely looking pairing offers another example of the potimate assimilation of pre-Islamic traditions. On the left is a large covering more than seven feet long that I don't believe we've ever exhibited. Radiocarbon dated to 417 to 545. We don't know its original purpose. It has sections of looped tile provided warmth or cushioning. On the right is a 12th century potimate tiraz. In real life it's much smaller than the Byzantine shroud. In both works the texts and decoration appear to marshal protective messages to benefit the audience. The Greek text names a private individual and includes moths and emblems that symbolize the crucified cross. The Arabic text names God, the prophet Muhammad, and Ali, the prophet's son-in-law and first caliph. And it repeats that victory comes from God. With these details we can see that although they are separated by some 600 years, both textiles are dominated by similar long-lived decorative regimes. Geometry and interlaced. Geometric patterns are especially persistent and invasive and both fabrics feature variations on lozenges and twining circles. They also devote considerable surface area to interlaced patterns ranging from simple twining to complex braids and knots. It's been suggested the interlaced patterns were understood as snares to trap evil forces which would give these textiles an additional talismanic character. Late potimate tiraz, such as the three on the screen, show how Islamic and pre-Islamic decorative modes and techniques came together in medieval Egypt. We see silk woven tapestries featuring Arabic inscriptions embedded in a range of late antique decorative regimes. In the hands of talented weavers, tiraz contributed to a fusion that helped fashion a distinctive Egyptian. Now despite their high quality materials and execution, the two tiraz on the right do not name the caliph. By the 12th century, the concept of tiraz seems to have generalized beyond its original purpose and decorative patterning became the dominant feature. The format had outlived the content. Perhaps these textiles were produced for wealthy individuals who were not part of the caliphal network or perhaps they were commissioned by people who simply wanted a high status textile for personal purposes such as private gifting. Some of the most interesting textiles in the southwest are removed from the elite network that originally defined the tiraz. My favorites are shawl fragments probably made in the Fayun region. Located southwest of Cairo, the Fayun had been a bishopric in the Christian era. As we saw with the Byzantine tapestry and an exhortation to flourish, textiles bearing inscriptions in Greek or Coptic, the indigenous language of Egypt, were not unknown in the Christian era. Their texts, however, were usually short and functioned essentially as captions for the pictorial declaration. Lengthy inscriptions such as we find on the Fayun shawls signal the impact of tiraz. As in this example, the text may be bilingual in Arabic and Coptic. The Fayun shawls stand outside court circles in more way. Their patterning wefts are not silk but traditional wool and linen. And the writing is debased, even pensive, suggesting they served a less literate clientele. Along with a lively cast of animals, this example features virtually illegible texts. The Coptic inscription seems to request divine assistance for the owner and features a cross and abbreviated references to Jesus Christ. The Arabic text, interspersed with protective hexagrams and birds, is perhaps a rendition of the ubiquitous wish for blessings from God. But if you see it otherwise, I couldn't make much of an argument. The Fayun shawls reveal the gradual interweaving of communities in medieval Egypt. Their animal and plant motifs recall the Byzantine decorative repertoire, although the appearance of camels is a novelty in Egyptian textiles. And the presence of Arabic, either alone or alongside Coptic, shows the gradual process of language conversion. Christian and Jewish communities existed in Egypt for centuries before the spread of Islam in the 7th century, and they continue to this day. The status of non-Muslims in medieval Egyptian society was characterized by a tension between integration and distinction. And as they mingled with the Muslim population and worked within the state administration, they adopted Arabic as a day-to-day language. Over time, Arabic also became the predominant language of religious expression for these communities. Just when this language transition occurred is debatable. This bilingual shawl has been radiocarbon dated to 770 to 887. The third section of the exhibition considers the presence of inscribed text in the burial context, acting as a coda to the preceding discussion on the use and make of materials. In this final section, we explore both how and why these fabrics were used in medieval graves. Almost all surviving tiraz textiles were recovered from Cairo's immense urban cemeteries, known collectively as the Paraka. This view, taken from the balloon in 1904, faces south. It shows the vast medieval necropolis of Cairo. The Great Northern Cemetery is in the foreground, and the Great Southern Cemetery, from which many tiraz are said to have been recovered, starts at the very top right. Although most tiraz lack reliable archaeological data, the patterns of stain and deterioration affirm their use in burials. Now, the next slide is disturbing because it shows an enshrouded body. In some instances, textiles were recovered according to the scholarly standards of the day, as we see in these photographs from the 1930s, where a shroud covered body is being processed by the staff of the Museum of Arab Art, now the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo. In the photograph on the left, the man in the lab coat is marking the burial shroud and outlining the area of inscription. The inscription band is positioned over the face. In the photograph on the right, the decorated section of the tiraz is being cut apart. The striking Abbasid tiraz that we examined earlier is repeated here, because if you look closely, you'll see the three edges are cleanly cut, and the upper edge is marked with a graph outline. It undoubtedly received the same treatment. The Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo has the largest single collection of tiraz textiles in the world, numbering well over a thousand. The thousands more were unearthed by members of the antiquities trade, who recorded fine spots in only the most approximate manner, if at all. Their primary goal was to bring objects to an international market, and museums in North America are now one of the most important repositories for these objects. Egyptian burial practices for both Muslim and Christian communities involved enfolding the deceased in multiple ways. The body was dressed in a tunic or robe, and sometimes in a continuation from Byzantine practice, the head or feet were laid to rest on a cushion. This tiraz probably served as a cover for a cushion. Areas of red and green would not have been visible simultaneously during use. The striking inversion could only be observed by turning the pillow over. The fabric is mostly intact, although it's possible that a final word is missing in the green section, which might have told us the location of the bookshelf. It's one of the earliest tiraz in the exhibition, dateable on the basis of script and pattern to the early ninth century. We chose the green section of the cushion for the cover of the catalogue because it's exceptionally beautiful, and because the text literally says what was made in the tiraz workshop. As preparation for burial, the deceased was swathed in one or more fabric shrouds, such as the eight-foot shawl that we examined first. And in some burials, the entire ensemble was completed with a reed mat as an outer wrapping. During their owners' lifetimes, reed mats were probably used as a ground cover for clay. Very few have survived. This rare example from the mat was woven much like a textile. It recalls tiraz in the style and placement of the inscriptions running crosswise at top and bottom. The lines of text in the monumental angular script invoke a generous assortment of blessings and good wishes for the owner. So now we turn to the more speculative matter of why inscribed textiles were present in medieval Muslim burials. Perhaps these fabrics have played a significant role in the lives of the deceased, or their quality was believed fitting for a final resting place. The argument of this exhibition, of course, is that the inscriptions themselves were believed to bless the deceased and ease the transition. Central to Islamic eschatology is the belief in a day of reckoning, when all souls shall be brought before God and return justice. On the left is a mid-ninth-century Egyptian gravestone that marked the tomb of a woman named Fatima. The text makes clear the anxiety that the apocalyptic event inspired by citing the stern Quranic verse. I quote, O ye people, fear the day when ye shall be brought to God. Then shall every soul be paid what it earned, and none shall be dealt with unjustly. On the right is a detail from the late Abbasid tiraz that names the caliph and also the prophet Muhammad. In some circles, it was believed that the prophet might intercede on the day of judgment on behalf of those whose lives had been less than perfect. For supporters of the Fatimid dynasty, the significance of tiraz texts was intensified. Both Abbasid and Fatimid caliphs were honored as secular. Fatimid caliphs enjoyed a more exalted status. According to Ismaili Shia doctrine, they were appointed by God and imbued with infallible secret knowledge derived from their kinship with the prophet's family. Similar to the prophet, but of greater importance, the Fatimid caliph was considered a source of blessing who could intercede on the day of reckoning. It seems that the mere presence of his name on one's burial fabrics might transmit religious favor at a critical moment. The inscription on this tiraz appears understated, but it proclaims its confessional allegiance. After the Muslim profession of faith, it blesses the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim, his father, and all their forefathers, and then explicitly invokes the day of judgment. Tiraz textiles served the regime and brought beauty and meaning to their owners in life or death. They affirmed the prestige of the caliphate and proclaimed the wearer's connections with the ruling elite. Over the course of the four centuries covered in social fabrics, the character of Tiraz encompassed both the graceful simplicity of the embroideries and the colorful exuberance of fabric. This last example testifies to the sumptuous possibilities of late Tiraz, at least for those in the uppermost levels of power. The inscription names the caliph Al-Hakim, who was also named in the previous rather understated Tiraz. But here, shining gold surrounds the inscription, literally highlighting its importance in the composition. Gold also illuminates the birds, which were probably intended as an auspicious motif. To create the gold weft yarns, thin strips of metal were wound around a thread core. The use of precious metals and textiles as employment was closely controlled by the state, and only the highest ranking courtiers received robes of honor woven with gold. Historical accounts of the Platonic court preserve vivid descriptions of the palace culture luxuriously furnished with gold textiles. Very few of these costly fabrics have survived. The vast majority were likely burned to recover the precious metals. The inscription hints at the tumultuous nature of Al-Hakim's 25-year reign. It reveals his ploy to subvert the direct line of succession and name his cousin, Abul Qasim, as the next caliph. Ultimately, his plan was thwarted by further palace intrigue. Fragmentary as they are now, the very textiles brought together for this exhibition convey meaning through their inscriptions, patterns, and manufacturing techniques. They reveal the circumstances and aspirations of those who commissioned and owned them, and remarkable resilience and artistry of their makers. Some of the texts convey membership in the upper echelons of power, while others only imitate the exercise of privilege. If the Fatimid Tiraz prominently declared tenets of Ismaili Shiism, the Coptic blessings on shawls seek to maintain Christian identity. All reflect a broader culture in which literacy is highly valued, if not widespread. All are vital social fabrics that speak across the centuries to our own concerns for systems of inclusion and exclusion, and how these are announced and perpetuated. My colleagues and I have brought the texts for this project to completion, even as the world struggles to contain a pandemic, and the countless connections and transactions that weave together the very fabric of society are on hold or attenuated as a result of quarantine or social distancing. To agree to a degree we could not have imagined at the outset of this project, we look forward to welcoming the public to this exhibition in January 2022, and I hope to see you there. Thank you.